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Act 1 - The Undying
You can barely make out her pinprick shape through the crowd, but between the innumerable swaying heads in front of you, you catch glimpses of someone in white and violet kneeling on a dais on the lowest plaza of the Crystal Citadel. The high priestess of Iomedae is in front of her, the trademark longsword at her waist, the albino lion circling. Arranged in a semicircle behind them is what looks like the whole of the Imperial Senate, wrapped in their hooded violet robes. One figure is alone: a shrunken man who likely weighs less than the robes he's wearing. The priestess stops chanting and the kneeling woman rises. As she does you catch the glint of the simple crystal crown set against her dark curls. She waits, looking out over the crowd. Hundreds of thousands in the streets and rooftops and rickety constructs that sway, creaking, in the breeze. The murmur dies to a whisper, and she remains silent, waiting. The sun finishes lowering into the sea, and as the last rays rake across the city, reluctant to be pulled away, the Citadel lights as if aflame. A wave of white light sweeps across every polished floor, every wall, every column and statue, leaving the carved webwork of runes along the surfaces blazing as it passes. Soon the runes light Citadel as if it were day, and standing in the middle of the blinding display is the woman, like she was a goddess of righteousness, sent down from the outer planes. You hear her voice – not unpleasantly loud, but amplified somehow to fill the entire city – and feel a not-unwelcome sense of calm. “Paisurans!” she cries. You can't help but notice the halting reluctance of some of the crowd. The sense that there are Paisurans... and there are Paisurans. “Today is a day not for me, but for all of us!” she continues. “Today marks one thousand years since my ancestor, Emperor Malak, united the warring kingdoms into one Empire! We stand here, one people, one family, because of ''his ''courage! And today, on this great anniversary, your Senators have found me worthy to rise from their noble ranks to the throne!” Cacophonous, senseless cheering. “Empress! Empress! Empress!” She basks as it dies down. “But I do not stand here, now, as your Empress,” she says, her tone softening. “Nor as the Senator I have been these past five years. I stand here as an Imperial daughter! This Empire belongs to each of us, Imperial sons and daughters all! It is the task of each of us to make a better world, and I will do all in my power to better this world as my father did before me!” The crowd shifts again, and you see the Empress gesturing toward the sickly man in the chair: the former Emperor, Malak the Undying. It's hard to imagine a less fitting sobriquet for such a wizened husk. Something happens that you can’t quite make out. The crowd keeps shifting, and you have a hard time keeping track of the dais. The Senators are running, the Crystal Sentinels rush forward to protect the Empress, and you see that everyone seems to have forgotten about the Emperor. Someone new darts into view, and topples the Emperor and his chair over into a tangle of robes and limbs. Blood spurts everywhere, and the figure just stands amidst the carnage as everyone holds their breath in the elongated moment. They don’t gloat or flee or make any movements at all but look around, as if confused. The Empress – her vocal enchantment persisting, whether she knows it or not – fills the city with a single scream, and that jerks everyone to attention. Crystal Sentinels charge the figure, but they’re already running. In less than three heartbeats they’re lost in the press of the crowd as everyone tries and fails to run away from the figure and the Sentinels and the city Justicars. Though the crowd is shouting and shoving and frightened, you can hear the Empress sobbing into her father’s robes. “It’s going to be okay, papa,” she murmurs. “Clerics are coming. It’s going to be okay.” There’s a pause – he must have said something to her – and she sniffles. “I don’t know papa. I don’t know why someone would do this. But I’m going to find out.” Bruised, sweaty, and more shaken than you’d like, you make it to a tavern in the Reach that evening...